


Say You Do

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: 5 Times, AU, Alternate Timelines, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four choices that changed the world. One that makes things happen. 1) Cora doesn’t give birth, 2) Michèle survives, 3) Nathan chooses White, 4) Gabriel chooses to be a fain. 5) Canon. Gabriel chooses Nathan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say You Do

\- 1 -

In the end, her mother simply makes the potion, even after Cora told her that she was going to have this baby and that was it. She’s still reading a bedtime story for Deborah, Arran already asleep besides her, when Elsie comes inside, putting a dark red potion on her nightstand without saying a thing. Elsie grabs the basket of clothes that Cora hasn’t been able to finish fixing and leaves, huffing.

“Mummy?” Deborah asks, suddenly wide awake, blue eyes worried. “Why is Gran angry?”

“We had a small disagreement, sweetheart,” she says simply, smiling at her daughter. Deborah is far too clever, far too smart for her own good, even for the half whispered discussions Cora and her mother have been having, trying to shield the children from it. “Now, where were we?”

When Deborah is finally asleep, Cora sighs as she stands, a hand on her belly. She’s been wearing baggy sweaters, trying to hide the small swell that has been showing lately. But she knows she doesn’t have much time now. With all her pregnancies, by the fourth month the way her womb curves and swells will be definitely pregnancy-shaped.

She grabs the potion and leaves the night lights on, leaves the door half open as she walks down the hall to Jessica’s room. Jessica and Deborah’s, really, but Jessica has been having nightmares almost every day, her grief after Dean’s death always there. Cora opens the door a little bit to peek inside, and for once Jessica’s dreams seem calm, her daughter sleeping curled on her side, her blonde hair all over her pillows, her expression peaceful.

Time, she knows, heals everything. Maybe even this she thinks, hopefully, for one moment. With her mother at the living room, the telly on while she fixes her grandchildren’ clothes, Cora goes to the garden, crosses her arms tightly around her to try and stop the January chill from seeping inside her bones, the vial with the potion tight in her hand.

She remembers, back when she and Marcus were teenagers, when they still thought they could make plans for a future together, how they talked about children. Happy, magical children who would know no pain, no blood but that of scrapped knees from having a happy childhood. Marcus had wanted their children to look like her. She had wanted them to look like Marcus.

Cora thinks of her three sleeping children who look like her and who need her, now more than ever and she thinks of the fetus inside her. For one moment, Cora allows herself to imagine having that child, Marcus child, in her arms. Imagines them dark skinned and dark haired, imagines them growing up in this world.

Would her child, would their child be safe? Would a child that would be Half White, Half Black, be allowed to stay with their family? Would she be able to protect them against the Council and everyone and anyone that would try and harm them?

Her tears feel scalding against the winter cold.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers softly, a hand on her belly, her heart breaking, hoping that there is any way, any chance for the child that will never be born to know just how much she loves them, how much she would have wanted to live in a world where she would have been allowed to be their mum. “I am so, so sorry. I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m so, so sorry.”

The potion leaves an aftertaste of smoke and fire after she drinks it, and yet she keeps feeling cold for long, long months, even after all it’s over.

\- 2 -

It’s not until the Hunters start hurting Gran that Nathan snaps– he had been ready for pain. But for him. He’d been ready to be hurt and cut and maybe even killed, hadn’t wanted it but realized, since Kieran and his siblings had cut open his back, that it was probably going to happen like that.

But the Hunters keep hitting Gran and he yells at them to stop, fucking stop, he’ll do it, just stop stop stop.

Soul O'Brien raises a hand to stop the people attacking his grandmother. Gran pushes herself slowly on shaking arms. Her nose is broken, the cuts and bruises on her face starting to fade.

Nathan had thought that they’d be safe. Arran and Deborah and Gran. He’d thought that, since they were White, they wouldn’t hurt them. He should’ve realized that it doesn’t work like that, that, to get him, to get Marcus, Soul is more than ready to burn the whole world.

And it’s not a risk he can make.

“Promise you won’t hurt my family,” Nathan says, fire in his eyes. “Promise they’ll be safe.”

“Nathan, no!” Gran says, and then she screams when they hit her again and Nathan hates them, *hates them* more than anyone would ever be able to hate anyone… but he’s made his choice. Even if it’s probably not a choice, if there’s the only thing he can do.

“I hate Marcus Byrn. He raped my mother and he has killed so many. I don’t want to be like him. I want to be White.”

Soul O'Brien smiles like a benediction and everything in Nathan itches to fight against him, to yell and scream. The Hunters are still holding his arms tight behind his back, so that helps his urges to punch his too perfect face to a pulp when Soul puts his hands on his shoulders.

“Of course, Nathan. My niece is ever so fond of you, I just knew that she couldn’t be wrong about you.” Soul smiles and he has the same dimples that Annalise does when she smiles and Nathan feels sick when he underestands what he’s saying. “Please, help Mrs. Ashworth back home. And don’t worry, ma'am, Nathan and I are just going to have a small talk before he goes back with you, simply filling out some forms.”

He gets to go home three days later with only one missing finger and silver white tattoos on his skin that proclaims him White and that marks him as theirs, not even able to kill himself now if it ever comes to that.

But when he goes home Deb and Arran hold him tight and Gran is crying and it’s all worth it, it will all be worth it for this.

\- 3 -

When Mercury says her cost, Gabriel turns to look at Michèle.

Things in Europe are bad. They weren’t this bad before they left, two years ago, but now he can see the war that was brewing before everywhere. Michèle has often had to hide herself as Caitlin and pretend to be Half White, in order to be safe.

The idea of putting himself in harm’s way, with his sister nearby, it’s too much. They barely managed to escape Florida, what has become a full on battle between Whites and Blacks. Michèle still cries at night, when she thinks he’s not listening, mourning for Sam.

So he says no to Mercury, thanking her ever so much, but he doesn’t agree to her conditions.

“So what are you going to do now?” Michèle asks, frowning and worried.

“I was thinking, maybe Australia?” Australia is the one place in the world with more Black Witches than White. “Although, we’d need to go in a ship most likely, it’s too far away to make it the same day.”

“Not that!” Michèle stomps her foot down and, with the way she’s looking at him, Gabriel knows that she’s itching to find something to throw at him. “With your magic!”

Gabriel, very carefully, shrugs a little. “What about it?”

“How are we going to get it back?”

“Well…” he takes a deep breath. “We’re not.”

“What? No! Gab, you love being a Witch,” Michèle says, her eyes worried.

Gabriel thinks of his mother, murdered. Their grandmother trying to kill their father and being killed instead. Thinks of his father, wasting away on alcohol and a broken heart. Thinks of Michèle’s own broken heart. Of how close he came to losing her out of a stupid war that started so many years ago.

He smiles, reaches to hold his little sister’s hand and he gives Michèle’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I love being your brother more.”

\- 4 -

After Michèle’s death, after all it was done, he simply thought, what’s the point.

So Gabriel went as far away as he could from Florida, all the way to the other side of the country, all the way to Washington and got himself the first job he could find at a convenience store, an easy, mind numbing job that would keep him from thinking of everything he had lost, trying to adapt to a Fain life after all his life had been left living on the sidelines of it, not searching for any kind of Witch, just trying to forget, forget, forget.

But Gabriel knows the woman is a Witch from the moment she walks in and he can’t help the moment he tenses, for a moment, before he makes himself relax, let his body remember that he’s not a Witch anymore, hasn’t been for almost two years now.

“Good evening, how can I help you today?” he asks with his best southern drawl.

The woman is terrifyingly beautiful, dressed in an exquisitely tailored suit, her eyes a deep azure as they regard him.

“Gabriel, isn’t it? Your father said we could find you here.”

The betrayal from his father doesn’t feel as a shock and more like a burden. Gabriel has been sending him money, as much as he can afford, to help, because even if he never wants to see him again, Raff is all he’s got left.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to do with my father or his kind of business anymore, ma'am,” he says, hoping she gets the hint.

And she does, but she doesn’t take it. “My name is Victoria Van Dal. You have heard of me.”

He has. Gabriel pretends he hasn’t and he cocks his head to the side, smiling prettily.

“My friends and I are searching for a talisman. Very old, very powerful. Very reliable sources inform me that your family used to have it. Perhaps you know what I’m talking about?”

He knows what this Victoria is talking about, remembers the tattered parchment he still has in the tin of letters from his parents that is waiting for him at his miniscule apartment but, at the mention of friends, Gabriel turns to look towards the door. There’s a guy, thirty-ish or so, gesturing towards a young couple. He can’t see enough of the guy to know what his deal is, but they, oh.

The other two are Witches as clear as day and night: a beautiful fairytale-princess-like blonde White Witch who is holding a Black Witch’ hand, eyes dark and empty, almost unresponsive and Gabriel hates the two of them suddenly, unprovoked, feels the hate burning inside him until he can’t almost breathe.

Because all he can think of is of his little sister, of his Michèle, murdered for that very sin, tortured and murdered and her body never recovered, of his darling Michèle, without even a grave where he can leave flowers for her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says with an easy shrug, hate in his eyes. “You’re welcome to try with my father again. Perhaps he still has it.”

“Are you certain?” Victoria asks him. “We’re willing to pay handsomely for any information. For example, help with recovering lost talents?”

She puts a couple of potions in front of her. Gabriel glances at them for a moment, but then he looks at her without flinching. Fucking try him, he thinks.

“Positive.”

“Pity,” Victoria shrugs, pockets the potions again and leaves a small card instead. “Please, do call me if you recall anything at all.”

Gabriel offers her his cheeriest, happiest, most polite customer service smile and lets his accent fall back to his affected drawl.

“Will do. Anything else I can do for you, ma'am?”

She doesn’t answer, merely turns back to go towards where the other guy and the teenagers are waiting. They’re too far away for him to hear what they’re saying, but the White Witch looks at him with something akin desesperation before she turns towards her boyfriend, her stance speaking of fake optimism which the Black Witch guy doesn’t respond at all as they go again.

Gabriel doesn’t stop shaking for the rest of his shift.

\- 5 -

“Someone is in a good mood,” Rose says as a hello.

“Why do you say that?” Gabriel asks, curious. Not denying it, mind, because he is in a brilliant mood. The weather is warm, the sky a startling blue, no cloud in sight. He always did love this kind of weather best.

“You’re humming,“ Rose sings, then starts humming the same melody that, Gabriel is meant to understand, he was humming, reaching for his hand sto dance.

Gabriel almost denies it, can’t even remember the last time he did– but herecognizes the tune as David Bowie’s, Wild is the Wind. Funny, really, he hasn’t even heard that song in probably years. His mum used to love that one. He hums it again, twirls Rose and she gives a delighted gasp.

Love me, love me, love me.

“So, how is Nathan?” Rose asks, her dark eyes merry.

Gaining weight, he almost answers, but Gabriel feels strangely protective of Nathan which, really, doesn’t make sense to him. They have barely even talked, Nathan covering himself in steel and acid ready to burn anyone who gets too close.

But he sleeps with arms covering his head, huddling against a corner. He eats as if he was never sure if there was going to be more food. How Nathan’s unbelievable eyes always follow him, first distrustful, now curious. He wonders about the little scar on his cheekbone.

Gabriel thinks of when he was a kid, back when his parents were still together, when he and Michèle were little, about this mangly, stripped gray and black cat who hissed at everyone and how it would fight against dogs twice, how it took him almost three months of bringing it milk and ham up until the cat, little by little, approached him, remembers his hands getting scratched and bitten, and more than anything Gabriel remembers, clear as a day, the warm triumph he felt when the poor little animal finally allowed him to pet him, how it had curled its too bony, flea ridden body against his leg and purred up a storm, and he remembers how his heart had broken when his parents divorced and he couldn’t take the cat with him.

To Rose, he says: “Closed up. He doesn’t like talking about himself.”

Nathan had laughed, yesterday, when Gabriel decided to show him how he climbed, and the laughter had been unexpected for both of them, Nathan suddenly being a normal teenager with crinkly eyes as he laughed, his constanlty-bitten-lips stretched in a smile and Gabriel had felt warm all over at the sound. He has a good laugh, he had thought, and still does. A bloody great smile, ‘tho. If he gained a little more weight, there’d probably be dimples there.

He twirls Rose again and then back into his arms. Rose sighs as he dips her.

“Oh, oh, Gabriel. You like him,” Rose sighs again, as if her heart was breaking. “Oh, this is too precious. You like him. Nay, love him, I dare say.”

Gabriel stares at her and laughs– a startled, surprised sound. He lets her go gently. “I… what?”

“Love him. Deeply and truly,” Rose blushes prettily, pats his cheek. “He must truly be something.”

“I barely know him,” he says because he does. Or doesn’t. He doesn’t know Nathan. That’s the whole point.

“And yet, you do,” Rose stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You love him forever more.”

Gabriel laughs again and shakes his head and dismisses it as another one of Rose’s plots, doesn’t try to understand it just yet, and instead simply goes to give his report.

But when he goes back to the apartment, the sun still shining warmly over Ginebra, Nathan is asleep on the couch, the sun shining warmly on his face and Gabriel just stares, for a moment, at the way his usual frown has relaxed, his mouth half open, an arm over his stomach.

And something inside Gabriel squeezes tightly at the sight of him like that, of Nathan maybe starting to trust him and Gabriel realizes that he doesn’t want Nathan to be hurt. Not again. Not out of something he may cause.

He goes up the stairs soundlessly and then makes sure to make noise as he walks down again to let Nathan wake up, let him get ready for him to approach.


End file.
